Efforts to End Jail Overcrowding an Uphill Battle

Despite repeated efforts to relieve overcrowding in the jails, San Diego County’s criminal justice system keeps losing ground to the ever-growing number of inmates taken into custody, county officials said Tuesday.

Although the downtown County Jail comes close to complying with a court order limiting its capacity to 750 inmates, the county meets that limit by transferring inmates to 11 regional jails and honor camps, which are now also overcrowded, said Larry King, director of special projects for the county chief administrative officer’s criminal justice unit.

The most crowded regional jail, in the South Bay, is at more than 250% over capacity and is a “powder keg waiting to explode,” Assistant Sheriff Cliff Powell said.

As a result, the county, in addition to replacing its existing but aging facilities, needs to build another honor camp and a central booking center in the near future, King said.

King’s report was one of a series given to the county Board of Supervisors as the board grapples with a problem that has been studied for years but has yet to show any signs of disappearing. The board hopes to adopt a master plan for the county’s courts and jail facilities by this fall.

King said the jail inmate population of 3,249 is already four years ahead of a projection made just 18 months ago.

He said county population growth and more law enforcement officers have combined to flood the jails with inmates. State laws ordering automatic jail time for drunk driving and for crimes committed with guns have compounded the problem.

Alan Kalmanoff, a Berkeley-based consultant hired by the county, said the jail population could be reduced by moving arrestees more quickly through the criminal justice system.

He recommended making the public defender program more efficient, urging the courts to grant fewer trial continuances, lowering bails and releasing more inmates on their own recognizance.

Kalmanoff noted that judges were rejecting almost 60% of the recommendations of a county-funded program designed to screen offenders for quick release.

That revelation angered Supervisor Paul Eckert, who said he feared the county may be wasting money on the program.

“The County of San Diego has been throwing money down the drain,” Eckert said. “If we have the kinds of results on everything else that we have on this, we’re never going to solve the problem.”

Eckert and Supervisor Leon Williams said they were frustrated at the length of time it has taken the county to find a solution to the overcrowding, and they suggested that county staff develop a clear list of priorities that could be tackled one by one.

“We’re not going to resolve anything by talking about everything,” Eckert said.

Added Williams, “This is going to take over the entire county budget if we don’t do something about it soon.”